Ever since I bought iPad, I have tried to make it my main computing device. I love the form factor. I love many apps on it. I am have really started to enjoy many photography apps on it. Touch screen makes a lot of sense for photo editing. Snapseed, Apple Photos, Affinity Photo are my favorite photo apps on the iPad. But it has been hard to incorporate it in my photography workflow.

So my current workflow looks like this:

Import Photos on Macbook Pro via Lightroom 6

I am still using Lightroom 6 because I don’t want to pay $10 every month for Lightroom Classic CC. I use Lightroom because I have photos and videos on multiple devices. Lightroom makes it really easy to move photos around. I move older photos to a NAS drive.

Copy photos via rsync to shared NAS Folder

I backup new photos to a shared folder on NAS drive. I have a simple script that runs once a day but I can execute anytime I like.

Import photos on my wife’s laptop

While we can simply plug-in the camera in her laptop and she can import photos but it is just easier to import from NAS drive.

So at this point, we have 3 local backups of photos.

Sync Photos on Google Photos

Google Drive is syncs photos and videos too.

Backup Photos on SmugMug

SmugMug is not a backup solution but it provides unlimited storage for your photos. I use SmugMug mostly to share my photos with family and friends. But I have set up smart folders that backup all photos. This way I have two offsite “backups”. Remember these are not true backups but something for worst case scenarios.

Check Photos on iPad

I use Google Photos app to see synced photos, I might cull them there and it would delete those photos on my MacBook. But mostly use iPad for light editing and sharing photos with friends and family on Instagram or privately.

I can also download full resolution photos using SmugMug app on iPad but that is rarely ever needed.